Sometimes the bridge is across a road, other times a stream. In our engineering company, most bridge projects are similar. If none exist, let it be the first one, and adjust the activity list into a template for use on future projects. Every project should consider activity list templates. It’s even better when the project’s issues have been documented, because special attention can be given to tasks by breaking them down. There are always other projects from which data can be gleaned and task lists appropriated. Three sources that should be considered for every project are: But most often some level of extrapolation is needed from other information sources. If you, or a member of your team, can reliably estimate the work on your own, this is a good situation to be in. The risks should be well documented and communicated to the relevant parties, largely absolving the project manager of the potential negative consequences. Notice that you’ve just identified the project risks, which is the first step in project risk management. Maybe some contingencies are needed to get to that point. Often there will be a well defined point during the project execution where a task will become well understood. Determine why it’s not well understood and perform some more due diligence until it is.Separate out the parts that are not understood.Then, if the task well understood, it is broken down enough. This is generally an easy distinction to make. If you’re wondering whether to break down a task further, as yourself these three questions:Īnother way to break down tasks is the following. If you create the task to be small enough so that only 0%, 50% or 100% can be used, there can be no guessing as to whether a task is complete and project control will be very effective. This is difficult to control and project team members will exaggerate it. When performing earned value analysis during those status points, the percent complete for big tasks inevitably gets assigned as something like 35%, 65% or 95%. Tasks should not be much longer in duration than the distance between two status points, usually weekly status meetings or something similar.This makes the phase manageable and provides valuable reference points. Any level should contain no more than 10 tasks per phase.That being said, if you are learning project management it is best to try a small project with small tasks. Any less, and you will lose control of the project by micromanaging tiny tasks. Any more, and you will lose control of the task because you are trying to manage a major subproject. Tasks should be between 8 and 80 man-hours of labor.The experience-proven rules of thumb which will help you to know when you are finished decomposing are: The task should have clearly defined start and end dates.Ībove are the official guidelines to choosing tasks.If this is difficult to achieve, break the task down further. Effective project control requires that reliable percent complete estimates are given at any time. For example, placing roofing and siding into a single item called “exterior” would create a situation where there are multiple responsible parties and therefore the success or failure of the task can’t be well controlled.
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